Silence followed for a little while. Then my mother said:
"When you're ten you shall have a tutor, and your own servants, Augustin."
Hastily I counted the months. There were nine; but what did the proposal mean? Was I to be a free man then?
"And we women will leave you alone," my mother went on. She kissed me again, adding, "You don't like us, do you?"
"I like you, mother," I said gravely, "at least generally—not when you let Kr—the Baroness——"
"Never mind the Baroness," she interrupted. Then she put her arm round my neck and asked me in a very low voice, "You didn't like the Countess better than me, did you, Augustin?"
"N—no, mother," said I, but I was an unaccomplished hypocrite, and my mother turned away. My thoughts were not on her, but on the prospect her words had opened to me.
"Do you mean that the Baroness won't be my governess any more?"
"Yes. You'll have a governor, a tutor."
"And shall I——?"